<p>Human Action by Ludwig Von Mises. Read some Chomsky, but make sure it’s on foreign affairs; his economics are weak.</p>
<p>Finish it all off with a little Anarchy and The Law, and you’ll be a state-hating, revolutionist like me!</p>
<p>Oh, then you can read some Krugman and Freakonomics. You’ll be able to expose the fallacies in every one of their sentences thanks to the earlier readings :)</p>
<p>“libertarianism/conservatism: pretending that economists who don’t agree with their philosophy are un<em>real</em>—i.e. don’t exist—in order to avoid having to actually deal with their arguments.”</p>
<p>straw man argument: see above</p>
<p>When did I ever say that non-libertarian economists are not real? Or when does any libertarian economist avoid the arguments of non-libertarian economists? Many great economists were not libertarians. No serious libertarian economist would just dismiss the worthwhile work of economists like Arrow, Coase, Solow, etc. But myself and many other econ nerds find Krugman unworthy of his reputation, and he has drastically turned away from economics over the last ten or fifteen years to embrace many ideas that run counter to textbook economic thought as well as empirical evidence. As for Galbraith, he’s a hack like his father. Even Krugman will tell you that most economists don’t take Galbraith seriously. An econ textbook I have from the 70s written by two definitely non-libertarian Keynesians say that he’s basically an idiot (you have to read between the lines).</p>
<p>The Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao-Junot Diaz- I started this book yesterday and its very good. I think I like it cause it deals with issues am familar with.(this book has some spanish in it but I understand it) However, you may not feel comfortable reading this book if you’re not latino or black.</p>
<p>Angels and Demons -Dan Brown- It’s a long read sometimes drags and sometimes keep you off your seat. It was 10X better then the movie (I saw the movie and I fell asleep in the middle lol)</p>
<p>@TomServo
I responded that way because by stating that <em>real</em> economists are the libertards …<em>ahem</em> sorry, libertarians, you’re insinuating that Krugman et al. aren’t <em>real</em> economists, i.e. un<em>real</em></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m sure he was saying any economists other than libertarian economists literally “don’t exist”. What an acute interpretation of yours :rolleyes:</p>
<p>When you go through the literature, it’s not even close. The Austrian and Proto-Austrian (like those of the French Liberal School) economic insights are far more developed and accurate than Keynesianism and Monetarism. </p>
<p>I mean, c’mon, homogeneous capital and no inclusion of time in interest theory (and don’t even get me started on the flaws of their beliefs of what money is)? That’s just unscientific…</p>
<p>/Rant and thread derailing</p>
<p>reading into sarcasm fail.</p>
<p>anyway, gah, i actually don’t know much about what you’re talking about. i’ll just back off for the time being until i actually get to college and learn econs 101 :p</p>
<p>So then why all the libertarian hating, brah?</p>
<p>Anyway, I urge you to go to mises.org and read some of the material throughout your education (which will likely be very Keynes heavy). All the literature is free, and it’ll help you keep an open mind :)</p>
<p>well from the econs i’ve been reading by myself i’m leaning strongly liberal, though far less knowledgeable as i’d like myself to be.</p>
<p>back to the thread, non-fiction i’d strongly recommend is The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. really makes you understand more about life (in the biological sense), though can be quite hard if you previously have no clue about evolution (and impossible to understand if your a cretin …creationist).</p>
<p>Current reading list:</p>
<p>The Blank Slate - Steven Pinker. It’s about how biological factors (like genes) influence human behavior, and how important it is that society realizes this.
Hitch 22 - Christopher Hitchens. The memoirs of one of my favorite pundits.</p>
<p>I’d like to pick up Paul Krugman’s Peddling Prosperity at some point as well.</p>
<p>Don’t listen to NonAntiAnarchist, there are two types of Austrian economists: serious ones (your Hayeks and your Mises) and clowns (these would be your Murray Rothbards and Lew Rockwells). Monetarism (and I’m speaking here about Milton Friedman’s prescriptions on monetary policy) is widely misunderstood, even by economists. I had to actually read Friedman’s book to know what it was all about, because all of the other books had gotten it so wrong. As for the monetarist descriptions of how money works and what the implications of bad monetary policy are, they are bang-on, and I mean empirically, not just in reasoning. Bernanke himself, a Keynesian, admitted to Friedman that the Great Depression was the fault of the Fed.</p>
<p>Disagree with Friedman’s monetary policy if you want, but don’t disagree with his interpretation of monetary history because you’ll lose.</p>
<p>I highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell.</p>
<p>^^^^“Outliers” is pretty good.</p>
<p>The best book ever created by a man: Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.</p>
<p>Though if you want something more fantasy/science-fiction, anything by T.A. Barron is excellent. His Merlin series was great.</p>
<p>God is not great
the god delusion
the end of faith</p>
<p>Brave New World by Huxley and the counter, The Island.</p>
<p>The Prince by Machiavelli was an interesting read.</p>
<p>The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown<—An AWESOME read.</p>
<p>Catcher In The Rye has to be my favorite book ever</p>
<p>Usually I like classics, but I just bought and read The Magicians by Lev Grossman.</p>
<p>It’s like Harry Potter for adults where the magic makes sense and the characters aren’t arbitrarily created. </p>
<p>Freaking awesome.</p>
<p>I highly recommend The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Murray Rothbard held the exact same economic positions as Mises, minus monopoly theory and public goods theory, so how can one be “serious” but the other a “clown”? And Lew Rockwell isn’t an economist…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Economics is not an empirical science, but a deductive science. That being said, Murray Rothbard’s interpretation of America’s Great Depression is also empirically valid, and I insist that the theory behind it is much, much stronger.</p>
<p>See, I can say person A is better than person B, too :)</p>
<p>Okay, I’ll recommend another book since I keep posting off topic:</p>
<p>Man’s Search for Meaning</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I love that book so much</p>